Chef Charlie Trotter Dead at 54

Most Read

Sad news out of the culinary world: One of America's most treasured chefs, Charlie Trotter, has died at the age of 54.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the famed chef was found earlier this morning in his Chicago home unresponsive and taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Trotter was originally discovered by his son before ambulance workers arrived on the scene. There is no official word on the cause of Trotter's death.

Trotter had closed his eponymous restaurant, Charlie Trotter's, in 2012 after 25 years in business. The New York Times hailed Trotter as a "pioneering chef whose restaurant in [Chicago] helped transform American fine dining in the last quarter century." When asked why he was closing Trotter said in an interview, "There are so many other things to do in life. Twenty-five years in this line of work is fantastic. It's just time to step back, breathe deeply and do something different." Trotter informed his staff that final New Year's Eve that he had plans to travel and go to graduate school to study philosophy and political theory, but those plans never did come to fruition.

In August, the chef was accused of strange behavior after he allowed high school photography students to use his restaurant as an exhibition space to display their work. Instead, the chef allegedly began cursing at the students and using gay slurs. According to celebrity chef website The Braiser, Trotter demanded that they clean his toilets. He then ordered them to leave, denying them the ability to retrieve their artwork or iPads. When asked to comment, a disheveled Trotter questioned the news crew if he should pull an "Alec Baldwin."

Trotter began cooking professionally in 1982 and made a huge splash in the Chicago restaurant scene when he opened his restaurant on Armitage Avenue. Over the years he received many accolades, including the award for the country's most Outstanding Chef by the James Beard Foundation in 1999. GQ restaurant critic Alan Richman previously told the New York Times, "Alice Waters may have discovered vegetables, but Trotter was the first man I know who cooked them beautifully."

The author of several cookbooks, Trotter will be remembered fondly by his fellow chefs and food industry colleagues.